This is a letter I sent to my former high school classmates in 2014. I studied at a school called Central School, or Kendriya Vidyalaya (KV), in Chennai (formerly Madras) in India.
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“On and on the rain will fall
Like tears from a star like tears from a star
On and on the rain will say
How fragile we are how fragile we are”
It feels like life in recent times has been particularly eventful for me, especially in the context of deaths of people that I have known one way or the other. Starting with my sister’s father-in-law’s death towards the end of last year, and continuing with my own father-in-law’s death while we were in India, including a good friend’s mother’s death around the time of my FIL’s passing away , and continuing with the recent news of the passing of PN Sreeniwas, and the latest – the death of a parishioner in our church a few days ago. (She had been very a very active person in social outreach programs and was actually younger than me – a tragic loss.) We did also lose a member of our acapella chorus to cancer earlier this year. He was also younger than me. There have been others. I will mention Suma’s dad in particular even though I did not know him. Ramu also lost his dad not too long ago. We have lost a few other former teachers from KV recently. We are at that age where our elders who are still in this world are in the end-game of their lives, and we ourselves happen to be vulnerable to the ravages of middle-age. Cancer appears to be a common scourge. While we mourn all the good people that we have lost, we perhaps also cannot help wondering how vulnerable we ourselves are, perhaps even feeling that we have become more vulnerable with the passage of time.
But we also know that death is simply an unavoidable component of the pattern of life. It is the nature of life that there is death at the end of it. One does not make sense without the other. The body does deteriorate with time even if the spirit may not. We might find ways to extend our lives, but the end is inevitable. Is there a reason to get depressed about all of this? Can we afford to be afraid of our destinies? If it is inevitable, what is the point in worrying? Should we not simply focus on taking care of things today? Should we not straighten out our relationships with the world today? We should not postpone things – because the tomorrow that you are waiting for may never come. We could celebrate each day as if it might be our last, and find a way to ignore what is irrelevant in this regard. For me to try to keep this kind of a perspective is difficult, but I must try.
Other than the cycle of life and death, I have found other ways of marking the passage of time in my life. In my own case, I am very aware of how quickly the world is changing around me. Because of my overall background, it is the rapid development and use of new technologies for communication and entertainment that I particularly think about. The rate of change is amazing even to me. But the experiences in life that I identify with most, as far as marking the passage of time is concerned, have to do with the popular music of the times. When a piece of music plays, my brain automatically tends to identify it with a period of time in my life. Getting back to childhood, I have some very faint memory of my mom noting some music from the Beatles even when I was very very young (we must have just returned from our stay in the US). During the period of life that includes my teenage years, I usually listened to contemporary music. It was the music of Hindi movies that my mom played and sang to on the radio. And it was the English music that was locally broadcast, and which also came from far off countries and continents over the shortwave frequencies. I was a child of the music of the 60s and 70s, and it will always remain that way.
My dad bought us a stereo system at home at some point, and I ended up buying music on vinyl from a store on Mount Road regularly. (Anyone remember The Bay City Rollers? In hindsight, their music was not very good. (sample)) The 80s came by, and I was a graduate student at Stony Brook before I started working in New Jersey. I ended up collecting older music in the CD format that was becoming popular at that time, while still continuing to listen to contemporary 80s music, both pop and rock, mostly on the radio. In general, there is less music from this era that brings that feeling of warmth, but there is still good music to be found and even bought (sample). The 90’s rolled by, and by this time, I begin to feel like I was becoming dated. There was less music that I could identify with, but, as a part of a continuing process that had started earlier on, I was getting more into the older music of a time before I was born. I was getting more exposure to the original music of America – mostly jazz and the blues. Our kids are born during this period of time, and they spend their life listening to daddy’s music.
While I do get to listen to the music of the 21st century on occasion these days (when the kids turn on the radio and I am not in control), I do not go looking for it, and I do not quite identify with it.
But I am getting older, and nostalgia is only a matter of time. The music that was once rejected has now become more familiar, and is capable of putting me in that unique frame of mind that comes with listening to some of my other older pieces of music. I am not prepared yet to admit that the pop music of the 80s was anything more than atrocious, but I am enjoying it (perhaps in the same manner that I enjoy some of the atrocious music of the 70s). It certainly makes me happy when I am exercising on the treadmill or cooking in the kitchen, and it also reminds me of a period of time in my life. Time has passed, and I have changed.
I don’t know if I will live long enough to enjoy the music of the 90s. If and when that happens, it will be another milestone, another marker, for the passage of time in my life. But it does not matter whether that happens or not. I have to enjoy the music today. Let the music play on.
Certain portions of the grounds look as if they are straight out of the set of an Indiana Jones movie. (The picture below reminds me of a Star Wars movie!)
We went to the beach and also walked along the beach to the 
I enjoyed the walk and the exercise, and I recommended to Srini that he try to visit these paths at least once a week so that he could stay in good shape. Maybe other folks in the area would like to give it a try (and perhaps give Srini company in this regard if he would like it).
on a hillside overlooking a point where a little stream met the 
The sun had not risen high enough to break through the hills, the tall redwoods, and the early morning clouds. 
I decided to enjoy my moment of quiet down by the river side.
Upstream, just behind an overhang of leaves, I noticed a family of 
I am so happy to have met some of young people who were present at the wedding. We will certainly not forget the ones who went out of their way to quietly serve the people and help make the event happen. Remarkable human beings, and good examples for all of us to follow!
There was this other time when we were talking about how we were planning to get to church in the nearby town of 
At the Goats and Glaciers viewpoint.
The lovely couple.
Do not know what happened here!
Supporting a fellow rider up a challenging slope.
He is his own man,
but I am not sure what he is doing here.
They both have one foot in the Banff National Park and the other in the Jasper National Park.
The explorer on Parker Ridge
probably looking at Saskatchewan Glacier (not in the picture) in the distance.
He gives a friendly wave as we head out to our stop for the evening at The Crossing Resort.
He was the first to venture into the glacier fed waters of Waterfowl lake. It was cold!
Here he is returning from an exploration in the vicinity of Bow Summit.
The friendly wave.
Happy birthday and happy trails, my friend!
Here is Ben giving us instructions for the last day. Ben was very thorough in his support. Go ahead and take a tour with him at 
We had been riding thus far on the Icefields Parkway. From now on we are on the Bow Valley Parkway. The funny thing is that my bear sighting was pretty soon after we saw this sign. 
The road ran beside the Bow River.
Here is a picture of the riders on the move. You may notice that the road markings here are very different from those encountered on the Icefields Parkway.
A freight train awaits beside the road.
Koushik, the heart and soul of our riding team.
Nancy and Stacy, old college mates.
Ben in his vehicle, after overtaking one of the riders.
I stopped with KP at a memorial point for the Castle Camp internment camp. Even though this episode happened during WW1, it is not difficult to imagine something like this happening even in our modern times.
The last paragraph in the wayside marker for the internment camp below reads “In total, eight thousand five hundred and seventy-nine men became prisoners of war in twenty-four camps located across Canada during the internment operations of 1914-1920. Most were foreign nationals, a few were British subjects or Canadian citizens. The majority were non-combatant, unemployed civilians – victims of the 1913 depression, racial prejudice and wartime hysteria. Many of the internees came from western regions of Ukraine, then a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.”
Stacy, Nancy and Sally.
The Bow river.
Ben’s van and trailer at the last stopping point.
Resting before the last push.
Sally and Bob, our riding leaders. They were the youngest and the oldest in the group. Bob, a former triathlete, took on the hills we encountered as if he was on a mission. Sally was not too far behind.
A squirrel observing the goings-on at this last stop.
This was the last picture I found on the camera after the trip. I did not take this picture. The time stamp on the picture leads me to believe that it was taken after I fell off the bike. I suspect that Bob, who had retrieved the camera and eventually delivered it to my home, took a picture to see if the camera was working. A great picture from that perspective. The camera ended up in better shape than I did!
That was the end of the ride, but not the end of my adventures.
Celebrating a 30th wedding anniversary!
Splattered Brains 